Eye of Newt Changes Lanes and Celebrates New Record ‘Work Perks’
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder)
Calgary’s Weirdo-rock outlet Eye of Newt cannot slow down. This past year, the band celebrated the release of their debut EP Stay in Your Lane (which Reverie writer Ben Goodman named one of his essential releases), hit lucky number 13 on CJSW’s Top 20 for 2024, and are now sending their latest record Work Perks off to the record pressers.
Reverie caught up with the multi-instrumentalist mastermind of the group, Nate Waters, (after he played four shows over five nights as part of his various musical entanglements) to discuss Eye of Newt’s latest release, the importance of collaboration within the Calgary music scene, and what’s next for the band.
Waters started Eye of Newt as an outlet for combining his “scattered and deranged” influences, whether they were post-punk, art-pop, or “just plain weird solo-ish projects.” Eye of Newt takes inspiration from artists like the Talking Heads and “Odelay”-era Beck and puts them through the filter of Waters’ own classical jazz and avant-garde background. While listening to Stay in Your Lane, you can hear these disparate influences converge on one another.
“I’ve tried to use this project as an opportunity to take some big swings harmonically and sonically from those worlds, but tuck them into pop songs about banal subjects like choice paralysis or long-distance relationships,” says Waters.
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder) - Nate Waters of Eye of Newt
The writing process for Stay in Your Lane started with Waters writing songs at the piano. “I really try to focus on having two parts accounted for as I write, so that way the left hand can stand in for a bass part and the right hand can stand in for a vocal melody, a guitar part, or a synth part.” From there, the additive ritual begins, Waters concocts a beat that he hopes drummer Chris Dadge “will say isn’t a ‘real’ drum beat,” then writes a synth patch “that will flip somebody’s lid,” and finally conjures “lyrics based on the most trivial events of my everyday life,” while aiming to make them “quasi-relatable.” Waters also enjoys incorporating a few unconventional instruments into these recordings, these include a beloved childhood toy on “Tic,” an overdriven harmonica on “Caviar Dip Near Me,” and an autoharp on “Magazine Cover Collies.”
The recording process for Stay in Your Lane began as a solitary venture, recorded almost in its entirety at Waters’ home studio. Waters chipped away at the record in pieces, “it was cool to be able to hop into a sound world for a few hours and record a part or two and then immediately drop it like a hot potato for a week. In the end, I think it gives the record a pretty wide swath of sounds.”
Once all the instruments were tracked, Waters reached out to Eye of Newt’s keyboardist Brock Geiger about using his studio (Studio B) to track vocals and finish the process. “All of the vocals and a single vibraphone part were recorded at Studio B, where the recordings were then re-vamped, bounced to tape and mixed. Working with [Geiger] was so easy, he heard my insane first passes at the mixes and in turn took some wide left turns to make the final product a pretty wild listen.”
The oscillation between styles and sounds across Stay in Your Lane “playfully and deliberately mock[s] that idea that everybody should only stick to just one specific thing.” Waters appreciates that the Calgary music scene “offers artists the opportunity to carve out more than one niche, and that in turn encourages listeners to check out different genres and their many facets within.”
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder) - Brock Geiger of Eye of Newt
His favourite local acts right now include Brain Bent (our issue #1 cover stars), who are “maybe the most fun you can have at a rock show in this town right now: sing-alongs, uniforms, surreal banter about working for a made-upcompany, the works!” Window Lamp, whose 2023 album ‘Episode’ Waters could not stop spinning, and Parisian Orgy who “always knock me out. As a jazz musician, I know they’re taking the piss out of me, but I’m into it? They’re also the weirdest band in Calgary, and that makes them a a must-watch.”
The live band for Eye of Newt is made up of a coven of Calgary’s most prolific collaborators. It boasts Brock Geiger on electronics and vocals, Samantha Savage Smith on bass and Chris Dadge on drums. “Sam’s band is actually the same humans that make up Eye of Newt. We’re just the bizarro version where everyone plays the wrong instrument,” jokes Waters.
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder) - Samantha Savage Smith of Eye of Newt
This cross-section of Calgary’s music scene can be found within a wide variety of genres. Geiger currently has three albums in progress between his eponymous solo project, the chamber pop outfit Raleigh and the electronic duo Étamine, all planning to release records this year.
Smith is currently recording her latest album with a tentative release date in autumn; Dadge will be working out of his own Child Stone Studios on albums from Stucco, Ryan Bourne, Hermitess and Victrix, and Waters is working with bassist Jeff Gammon and drummer Afo Fapojuwo on a jazz project also gearing up to make a record this year.
“All those projects above usually contain more than one of us four within them, meaning we not only get used to communicating with each other in real-time, but we also know that if we go into the trenches and learn one person’s passion project, then you can expect folks to dig in just as hard when it’s your project and they’re backing up your vision.”
Photo credit: Shannon Johnston (@me_onlylouder) - Chris Dadge of Eye of Newt
The year ahead holds a lot of excitement for the Eye of Newt, between the various solo projects across the group, the band has been “slowly and unpredictably” working away on their debut full-length record.
The new album Work Perks explores “accountability, entitlement, typecasting, and whether you’re really allowed to change, grow or quit anything in this life.” Recorded and mixed at Child Stone Studios by Dadge and mastered by friend of the band, Jay Arner (of Energy Slime and Big Rig), working on the album has been an enlightening process.
“Letting someone else’s version of how this band sounds permeate the recordings makes it sound really wild, like when one of those caricaturists draws you and focuses on features that you kind of forgot you had.” Look forward to Eye of Newt’s new album Work Perks arriving on May 27, 2025. Their new single “Anonymity Committee Ditty” is out now.
This feature was taken from our spring 2025 issue of REVERIE Magazine - order your physical copy here.